[528] in libertarians
Re: ACLU, Guns, Nukes, & Liberty
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Travis Corcoran)
Thu Dec 22 23:34:44 1994
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 94 23:31:37 EST
From: tjic@ICD.teradyne.com (Travis Corcoran)
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU, rgr@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <941223040814_74352.3634_HHG44-1@CompuServe.COM>
> Date: 22 Dec 94 23:08:14 EST
>
> 1. I believe the 2nd to be there as a hedge against government becoming too
> powerful and therefore it is in the citizen-actor's interest to ensure that he
> and his fellow citizens have the capability to unseat a government should the
> need arise.
I'd say that you hit *ONE* of the reasons that the 2nd ammendment is
there. Another reason is that Americans have the right to own guns
for whatever-damn-reason-they-please.
> 2. It is my impression that many here believe that if the need should arise to
> unseat a government that eviction would have to be served by a civil militia (is
> that an oxymoron: civil militia?).
I believe that there are realistic scenarios in which militia might
have to play a role in fighting government forces. I do not believe
that they are vital in every possible scenario.
> 3. In order to facilitate that civil militia citizens need to own every sort of
> weapon in the U.S. arsenal from 9MM Berettas to FAEs to Trident D-3 ICBMs.
There are [ at least ] two trains of thought here: one saying that
citizens should be able to own *ANY* weapon they choose, and the other
saying that citizens should be able to own any weapon short of those
of mass destruction (for a good defense of this viewpoint, web to the
Oceania page
http://unicycle.cs.tulane.edu:80/oceania/
and look up weapons in their constitution).
> If premise 1 and 2 are assumed to be valid, then where do I come in? I am a
> serviceman *and* I am a Libertarian. We have 2.5M people in uniform and they
> are not blindly patriotic little automatons. I find it inconceivable to think
> that the Armed Forces of this country would participate in a coup.
One does not need a coup to reduce constitutional government. We've
managed to avoid a coup for over 200 years now, but we've lost most of
the Bill of Rights. Good meaning servicemen and women are capable of
standing by why government ever-so-slowly chips away at our freedoms.
I know this is the case because I know that we've had good people in
the services over the past few decades, and I've seen some US freedoms
lost in that period.
> This is not a tin-pot, dysfunctional little African country. The
> individuals in the Armed Forces are educated and sophisticated.
That doesn't mean that they will realize that Constitutional rights
are slowly being lost, or that they will move to fight an elected
government. The recent "crime" bill seems a clear affront to the 2nd
ammendment, but I didn't see any officers streaming out of the bases
to arrest Clinton or the Congress as "enemies of the
Constitution...domestic".
> If, perhaps when, the next revolution comes we won't see the Army,
> Navy, Air Force, & Marines siding uniformly (tee, hee, bad pun)
> with the government. There will be many, if not a majority, of us
> who would take up a revolution.
I agree with this, which is one of the things that makes me think it
could be won ( or better yet - avoided, if it is made clear to the
government that this is the case). To play devil's advocate, however,
we don't know the what the quality of the people in the military will
be 30 years from now...after Vietnam drug use in the military was
high, retention was low, and average recruits were of lower quality
than they had been. Several old ROTC friends who are now active have
told me about good people leaving the military because of disagreement
with various policies (either excessive paperwork, ass covering, the
new homosexual policy (I'm not defending their disagreement, just
pointing it out), etc.). One could posit this trend continuing, with
the result that the military in the future would be composed not of
intelligent and well trained patriots, but with undereducated,
beuracratic toadies who are eager to please and get their tickets punched.
> Though at such a juncture we would probably see it not as
> "revolution" but as defense of the union against an internal
> agressor.
I imagine that we will see the military split up by units if it ever
comes to that. The question is what portion of the military will be
on each side.
> If you accept that civilians won't have to man the barricades alone
Perhaps not "alone", but that doesn't mean that they won't have to man
80% of the barricades.
> should also accept that the Individualist Revolutionary Army would have access
> to every sort of weapon known... including FAEs and D-3 ICBMs, their delivery
> vehicles, supply, and maintenance elements. What is most important is that we
> would have the people on our side, like myself, who can employ those weapons in
> the best (which is to say most lethal and destructive) manner possible.
If 20% of the military comes over, 20% sits out, and 60% fights for
the oppresive government, then every extra round of civilian ammo will
help.
> All this does nothing to lessen my belief in and support of our right and the
> necessity to bear arms.
Good.
> It does, however, lead me to feel a bit more confident that no
> tyrant could come to power in this country without having first
> defeated a formidable foe: the American. I am satisfied that there
> would be little left for him to rule.
WWI was an unwinnable war for every party involved (see the discussion
of was as a "lose-lose proposition" on ne.general), but that didn't
stop it from being fought. People can make stupid, irrational, or
uninformed choices.
> Which brings us to the other issue of contention: If we need to overthrow a
> government, what person could possibly *ever* justify the use of nukes? I
> cannot think of a single instance where a nuke could be employed in such a way
> as not to gravely affect the innocent. A nuke cannot be employed without
> uncontrollable fallout: nuke LA and you poison Kansas for a few dozen millenia,
> nuke Cambridge and our friends in Europe start finding Plutonium in their
> muesli. That applies in every instance, from the low end half-kiloton blast of
> our devious B-56 Dial-A-Yield bomb to the multi-megaton yield of a single MIRV
> from a Trident D-3. I propose that nukes be recognized as things beyond the
> scope of the 2nd.
Every form of warfare involves killing innocents, even today's modern
smart weapons. A nuke is no different.
I don't see a role for city-killers in a civil war, but I could posit
the use of tactical nukes easilly enough. Compare the civilian
casulaties from nuking an Army battalion in Minnesota to the civilian
casualties from that same army battalion marching unopposed into
several cities and performing search-and-destroy missions against gun
owners, "collaboraters", revolutionaries, owners of laser printers,
etc...
That having been said, I'm hardly sure that civilians should have
weapons this huge. I'm not arguing that the 2nd covers them. This is
one weapon that, if it came to Revolution, I'd count on the defecting
military units to bring with them.
--
TJIC (Travis J.I. Corcoran) TJIC@icd.teradyne.com
opinions(TJIC) != opinions(employer(TJIC))
"Buy a rifle, encrypt your data, and wait for the Revolution!"
